Engaging with our Mission 21: Getting rid of the goat? A fragment of papyrus has recently been found in the Sinai Desert. It appears to be part of a Hebrew Priest’s diary… Day 3874 Still not made it to the Promised Land. Moses has told us that God has given us a new way of dealing with our sin: a Scapegoat. After he’d made himself pure Aaron placed his hands on a goat’s head and confessed all our sin, transferring it to the goat. The goat was then sent off into the wilderness as an atonement sacrifice and we were…

Engaging with our Mission 20: Ready to Help? The midweek Bible study was a highlight of the week for the members of Hilltop Baptist Church. Their Minister regularly received invitations from around the world to share her clear, creative and deep approach to Bible teaching and whenever she was home the church would be packed full of people waiting to listen to her inspirational words of wisdom. As they met one stormy evening, they had just begun to read Acts 8 when the doors to the church flew open and someone ran in shouting ‘help, help, the river has burst…

They sat, looking at one another in disbelief. They had the secret of perfect Pizza but many of their restaurants were empty and some were even facing closure. They had grown up hearing stories of the previous generations, of packed restaurants where crowds had come to feast on Pizza. They knew that they were faithfully following the recipe and that they were doing all the same things as those who had come before them. They felt like they were doing everything right which left them confused because it felt like everything was going wrong. One of the managers broke the silence. ‘I’ve…

A new family has joined our church recently and whilst I was chatting to them following their first service with us, the mum asked if I remembered her? It turned out that she had come to one of our Family Film Mornings a few months earlier and that she had enjoyed it so much that she had decided to come and see what church was like on a Sunday. In that moment, I knew that I needed to say sorry to God. Let me explain … If you followed the amazing ‘50 Days’ you will have read about the Family…

The Church was on a mission and they were excited following the launch of several new projects. One Saturday morning they decided to go into their community to tell people about what they were offering. Peter couldn’t wait to share the great news about his church and so he made sure that he was first out of the door. As he walked along, he noticed a young woman trying to carry some bags full of toys. ‘Hello’ he said. ‘I’m Peter from your local Baptist church and we’re out and about today to tell everyone about the projects we are…